Excellent question and one that can be difficult to answer. Sometimes writing just doesn’t happen. Sometimes the answer is to do something else, like go for a run, or read, or even play a video game. For me the key is to be excited about a project so even if I’m not on a upswing, I can look forward to writing or editing a piece where I feel passionate about it.

And by feeling passionate or excited I don’t mean feeling that it’s going to be easy. Sometimes the hardest work, where I’m thinking deeply about the writing, is the most fruitful. Granted, it’s so easy to look at the amount of work needed and say, oh I don’t feel passionate about this so I’m going to play World of Warcraft (yes, still playing). The road to procrastination is paved with side quests. The trick is being honest and saying either:

I just can’t dredge up the words. I need a break to do something else today.

I’m at a tough spot and it’s going to be rough, but I’m going to focus on this for one hour and see what happens.

And the first option is okay. As long as I don’t let that day become a week or a month.

The second option is when I have to dig deep. Can I do 30 minutes? 15 minutes? Can I write just one paragraph? I tell myself I can delete it when I’m done. These tricks (somehow I can trick myself, which is pretty darn amazing. Brains are weird.), these tricks of time and short bursts of writing lend a sense impermanence to the writing which may be what I need at the moment. After all, if I pretend it’s not “serious writing,” then there’s no pressure. I can delete it and move on. I’m often pleasantly surprised by what comes of letting go of the pressure to perform.

If all else fails, sometimes I switch tracks completely. Last week, feeling conflicted and overwhelmed about working on my projects, I let myself write a few poems. No one has to see them, I flexed some creative muscle, and also worked on brevity and imagery. A win all around.

Sometimes it helps to remember that 10 minutes of writing is better than nothing. You don’t have to create a masterpiece each session. Just write and let go for a few precious moments.

This month, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group posed the question – How do you celebrate when you achieve a writing goal/finish a story? I’d love to be able to say I treat myself to a weekend in the Florida Keys or a workshop in Ireland over the summer. Alas, my celebration usually involves a mess of nerves untangling themselves for a short while and then a collapse on my bed. A brief respite when I glow with the satisfaction of sending a story to my critique group or to a publisher before my self-doubt and impostor syndrome kicks in. Ahhh, I have completed something!

But this reaction, while valid, only contributes to a continuous cycle of Never Feeling Good Enough. And this, my friends, is exhausting. Mentally, emotionally, and even physically. We should reward ourselves when we hit a goal or meet a deadline. We should take a moment to breathe, pat ourselves on the back (*creak* I definitely need more yoga in my life!) and say to ourselves, good job.

Going beyond massages, pedicures, manicures, what can we do when money is tight? Here is a quick list of free or low-cost rewards I’ve put together that works for me based on my interests:

A race entry (can be under $40 for a 5k)

Workout apparel (Tar-jay has some great options for all budgets and sizes)

A new book (here’s a no-brainer for writers. (You can opt for something light and breezy like a cozy mystery or dig into a how-to book for inspiration. I’m recommending Chuck Wendig’s Damn Fine Story, which is a switch from your normal how-to and delves more into narrative and storytelling.)

Try a new running or bike trail. Even if you’re not a runner or biker, getting outside can be a wonderful mental and emotional refresher

Sign up for a new type of workout – barre, Zumba, hot yoga. I’ve even seen naptime workouts.

Try a new type of wine (I recently had plum wine from Valenzano Winery here in NJ and it was delicious! Bonus, it was around $11.)

Try a new lipstick or nail polish. No long-term commitment and can you say unicorn or mermaid hues?

Check out a museum on free days

Organize a board game or card night with friends

Take a night off to pamper yourself – order in, watch a movie you’ve been meaning to see, wear something comfortable, and relax with no thoughts about the next goal or due date. Just be for a few hours.

Get moving!

Recently, I submitted several short stories to magazines. To celebrate, I finally decided to check out the trails near my house that I found out about two years ago but never tried. Of course, it was the day after a major wind and snow storm. Downed trees and mud acted as an obstacle course, but I needed to be outside after a long winter to sweep the cobwebs away and prepare now (small steps) for a triathlon in July. This didn’t cost anything, plus what better way to reward myself than giving my body the gift of health?

Remember, you can reward yourself for any goal, not just sending out work or publication. How about the fact that you wrote your minimum for the week (word count, time per day, days per week, whatever)? Or that you revised a particularly troublesome scene. Or that you learned a new skill to help you market yourself or your work better.

See…elebenty is a word.

We don’t give ourselves nearly enough credit for being writers and for writing (which we know is a lot more than just pounding out words). This is, for many of us, homework for life. Writing after the day job or school, after all the zillion other things that need to be done, and the elebenty billion other things we want to do (I just NEED that achievement in World of Warcraft!). We’re fighting against exhaustion, lack of time, and the ogre of procrastination.

Hitting a goal is some major shit. Treat yourself and learn to say, good job. No qualifiers needed.

Growing a writing community isn’t easy. You start slow, you start small. A few writers gather in a dusty library room or a small corner of a bookstore. Maybe you trade manuscripts, or read passages aloud. Or you exchange personal stories of rejections, maybe even an acceptance or two. With luck, the group grows. More people join. Newbies, pros. All looking for someone who understands.

The great thing about life is that you never know where a path may take you. The best case scenario? Small intimate gatherings swell to large groups. Members exchange hard-won wisdom, new markets, more rejections, but even better, more acceptances.

As a long-time member (and currently president) of the South Jersey Writers’ Group, I have seen new members come through our doors, perhaps a little nervous, eyeing us up like prey wandering into a room full of predators and I have to laugh a little to myself. After all, I think most of us have heard the horror stories of writers’ groups full of bloated egos and relentless back-stabbing. You know how those artist types are.

Yet, not.

Because sometimes magic happens. Let me give you only a few examples.

Vice-President Jessica Walsh-Jadach recently lead the group’s January meeting on goal setting. She provided each of us with a worksheet and helped us our form our plan, goals, and intentions for the upcoming year by pushing us to delve into what makes us write. Jessica, a certified life coach, also published an amazing 2-year journaling book, something I’m sure she hadn’t thought she would ever do when she joined the group (nor did she think she would become vice-president!).

Jennifer M. Eaton has had several YA books published with great success and is now a USA Today Bestselling Author. I still have yet to convince her to lead a meeting. Soon…

Tom Minder’s crime fiction novel The Long Harbor Testament was published last year and he has had many successful book signings, including several at various Barnes and Noble stores.

Cassandra Ulrich has published several young adult novels, adult romances, short stories, and poems.

There are many others, but I want to stop here. All five members highlighted are very different writers with a wide range of interests and backgrounds, but each of them has progressed through hard work, self-education, dedication, and of course talent, but that talent is something they have cultivated. And, more importantly, they each have contributed to the writers’ group by giving back to help others. Each is generous with their knowledge and time and ready to answer questions because that’s what’s we do.

This is what a writing community means and looks like – to support and build each other up. It’s not about competition, not about tearing others down, not about the stabbing of the backs. The SJWG exists to grow the voices of South Jersey and our members are integral to that mission. We are there for each other. Sometimes with knowledge, sometimes with a hug, sometimes with a friendly, but honest critique.

I have only attended a handful of writing conferences, but I can’t say I’ve been to one and have not learned something, or met someone interesting. I think even getting out there and being surrounded by life-minded people is helpful. I’ve practiced pitching my novel and talked to publishers and agents and have always come away with some new idea. Truly, the atmosphere fosters a sense of community and stimulates creativity.

As we approached the start of the PWC I was mulling over this post and why writing conferences are so awesome.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that Donna Galanti, author of Joshua and the Lightning Road and the brain behind Your Awesome Author Life, posted a new YouTube video 12 Reasons Why to Attend a Writers’ Conference. Serendipity much? Take a look at Donna’s 12 reasons and subscribe to her channel. She’s full of great ideas and good advice.

Apex Publications is currently holding a subscription drive called Revive the Drive. By contributing you not only help an amazing speculative fiction publishing company continue to publish original works, you can also unlock new original fiction, increase the pay for the writers and artists, and help with a website upgrade.

Items for sale start for as little as $3 (the Maurice Broaddus guest edited issue 95).

Onto the interview…

Have you ever received really nasty (or plain crazy) responses to a rejection?

I have gotten some pretty nasty responses to rejections. I’m sure every editor has. Typically when it happens, it’s because the author assumes that their story was rejected due to something personal about the author: snide comments about how we’d buy their story if they were a woman (because we all know women have it so much easier), or they should sue because we obviously rejected the story purely based on their race (which I didn’t know before they responded to the rejection and told me). Those emails really bother me. Honestly, when I’m reading a story, I barely even look at who the author is or where they’re from. And there’s no way for me to know any personal information about them unless they put it in their cover letter. All I’m interested in is whether or not the story is good for Apex.

Now occasionally I’ll get a response to a rejection where the author tells me how much I’m going to regret rejecting the story and it’s already been bought by another magazine and they are going to make that magazine rich and famous because they are SOOOO amazing! Mmhmm, sure you are. If another magazine has actually already bought the story, then you simultaneously submitted to Apex Magazine and the other zine, and we don’t accept simultaneous submissions anyway. Sooo … In this situation, I have not once regretted turning down the story.

What do you personally like best about going through the slush pile, besides finding a gem of a story?

Of course finding an AMAZING story is always the best feeling, but I also really like when I read a cover letter and it says that this is an author’s first submission. Or it’s from a young writer in high school and it’s their dream to be a published author. I always try to be really positive—even if I’m sending them a rejection notice—when interacting with these authors. I want to encourage them to keep submitting, keep writing. This is a tough business. It’s hearing a LOT of ‘no’ among very rare ‘yes’s. So if I can do anything to help a new writer out, I’m going to do it.

What made you decide to go into publishing?

It wasn’t really a conscious decision. I knew Jason Sizemore (Apex’s EiC) from a few sci-fi conventions that we had both attended and saw him post on Facebook that he was looking for someone to help out. On a whim, I volunteered. At the time I was staying home with my younger daughter who wasn’t in school yet and working on my novel The Weight of Chains, so I had free time on my hands. Despite having no prior editing experience, Jason gave me a shot and I started working 5 or 10 hours a week helping with marketing. Six years later and here we are. Best on a whim ‘yeah, I’ll do that!’ moment in my life. J

Do you ever find yourself accepting a story that you like but still needs work? If so, what goes into the editing process between you and author?

Typically the stories we buy are very clean and ready to be published. We work on a very tight schedule, so there isn’t time for a lot of back and forth. This is why it is incredibly important for writers to make sure that their stories are polished and ready to go before they submit. Of course we copy edit every story before publication, but this is only to catch minor things—an awkward phrase or missing word. We aren’t doing major changes.

Best tip on balancing work/ home life/social media?

Balance? Yeah … that would be good to have …

I wish I were joking more than I am, but I suck at balancing my work and home life. I work from home, so … it sorta feels like I’m always working. And sometimes I AM always working, because if something pops up it is really easy to just grab the laptop and deal with it. This is not good. It is not healthy. And I am trying really hard to be better about it.

As for social media, I do have tip: Log out. Yeah, I said it. Log out! I used to keep Twitter and Facebook up and open all the time and periodically throughout the day I’d scan through it. That doesn’t sound that dangerous, but it is. When you do this, you have no idea how much time you are spending just scrolling! That’s time that you could be using to write or work or read; all things much more important that liking a photo posted by someone you haven’t seen in 20 years. Also, I feel like in recent months that Twitter and Facebook seriously depress me. Everyone is so angry and negative all the time (some with good reason, some without) and it was really getting to me. I’d be sucked into reading these long posts and emerge completely beaten down. Even when I could tear myself away to work, I couldn’t focus. So for the most part I stay logged out. I check in on things first thing in the morning while I’m drinking my coffee, and may go back one more time during the day. And that’s it. It’s a small change, but it has really helped me be more productive and happier.

What changes or patterns have you noticed over the past several years regarding the content of submissions?

Submissions are a strange, funny thing. Taken individually or just a handful of stories, you won’t see anything, but when you read a lot of slush, patterns do emerge. Not so much patterns as in ‘this is the future of scifi,’ but more a realization after reading a dozen stories, more than half of them dealt with the sea or ocean in some way. Or suddenly a chunk of stories come in that are all flash fiction. Or maybe you get a bunch of stories that deal with monsters. Sometimes the similarity between a batch of stories is oddly specific—cowboys on Mars—and at that point I have to wonder if another publisher was holding an open call for a themed anthology and we’re seeing the stories that didn’t make the final ToC.

Lesley Conner is a writer/editor, managing editor of Apex Publications and Apex Magazine, and a Girl Scout leader. When she isn’t handling her editorial or Girl Scout leader responsibilities, she’s researching fascinating historical figures, rare demons, and new ways to dispose of bodies, interweaving the three into strange and horrifying tales. Her short fiction can be found in Mountain Dead, Dark Tales of Terror, A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre, as well as other places. Her first novel The Weight of Chains was published by Sinister Grin Press in September, 2015. Best of Apex Magazine: Volume 1 marks her debut experience in anthology editing. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two daughters, and is currently working on a new novel. To find out all her secrets, you can follow her on Twitter at @LesleyConner.

In 2017 I decided to take part in the Goodreads Reading Challenge, where you set a goal for books to read during the year and try to meet that goal. When I was younger, I would fly through books at a tremendous rate. I remember being nine and my mother bought me a Nancy Drew book (hardcover!) and I finished it the same day.

Mom: “You read the whole book already?”

Me: “What else was I supposed to do with it?”

Over the years, I’ve noticed that my annual reading rate has slowed for various reasons, not all of which are bad, but still have cut into my reading time.

So, how was my first quarter?

So far, I’ve finished 8 books. Not too shabby. Thinking about the challenge, I decided to do a monthly round-up which will help promote the books and keep me honest (and reading!).

Life in a Medieval Castle and Life in a Tudor Castle (which has disappeared from my Kindle). Both short non-fiction books that walk the reader through a day in the life in the named castle. These are surface-level books, which do not delve into details, but good stepping stones if you wanted to learn more about either topic. As a writer, I found they were good if you needed some starting information but didn’t want to bog yourself down in too much research just yet.

Not So Much Said the Cat, by Michael Swanwick – one of the my favorite speculative fiction writers. I had discovered his work back in the 90s reading through an issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction and fell in love with his storytelling. This collection of short stories does not disappoint. I pondered the deeper meanings and the impact of time travel for days after reading The Woman Who Shook the World Tree. Passage of Earth freaked me out. Like really freaked me. Not for the squeamish, but incredibly thought provoking on how we view alien life forms. And Of Finest Scarlet Was Her Gown, from which the title of the collection is taken, is an amazing adventure and come-of-age story. Which happens to take place in Hell. Michael Swanwick once again proves that he is a master of short fiction.

My February Project is Picture a Day. Something inspiring, something cool, something to make you smile or think.

Day 6

Today’s picture of the day is of Anne Spencer (born February 6, 1882), American poet, in her wedding dress. Anne was the first African American poet to be featured in the Norton Anthology of American Poetry. She was valedictorian of the class of 1899 at Virginia Seminary, despite not starting formal schooling until age 11. Besides writing poetry, she was a gardener and activist and hosted many dignitaries at her home in Virginia including Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington Carver, and W.E.B. DuBois.

Translation

– Anne Spencer (1882 – 1975)

He trekked into a far country,
My friend and I.
Our deeper content was never spoken,
But each knew all the other said.
He told me how calm his soul was laid
By the lack of anvil and strife.
“The wooing kestrel," I said, “mutes his mating-note
To please the harmony of this sweet silence.”
And when at the day’s end
We laid tired bodies ‘gainst
The loose warm sands,
And the air fleeced its particles for a coverlet;
When star after star came out
To guard their lovers in oblivion —
My soul so leapt that my evening prayer
Stole my morning song!

My February Project is Picture a Day. Something inspiring, something cool, something to make you smile or think.

Day 5 (yes I skipped Day 4)

The lava lamp was invented in the 1960s by a British accountant and works due to the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (which sounds like a Big Bang Theory episode). RT instability happens when two liquids of differing densities mingle, in this case, wax (the “lava”) and the surrounding water-based liquid, but do not dissolve. In the simplest terms, waxy blobs and water are heated by a light bulb in the base of the lamp. The wax heats up, rises to the top, then cool and drops down. Lava lamps went on to become one of the defining images of the 60s, and are still sold today.

Fun Fact: The Doctor Who episode The Wheel in Space (1968) was the first television show to feature lava lamps.

My February Project is Picture a Day. Something inspiring, something cool, something to make you smile or think.

Day 3

Ben Franklin with son William Franklin (inset).

A little sad one today and something to reflect on. Despite all his accomplishments, Ben did not have the best family life. Some say the loss of his four-year-old son, Francis to smallpox (vaccinations save lives!) may have caused Ben to disengage from his family.

However, in later years, Ben and his illegitimate son William were friends and business partners until the American Revolution when father (patriot/revolutionary) and son (loyalist) parted ways. William was the last colonial governor of New Jersey.and vehemently disagreed with the revolution. Ben and William only partially reconciled before Ben’s death and Ben left little in his will to William, preferring his grandson, Temple, William’s illegitimate son (oh my!).